The internet is a crazy place. Unlike life, where it takes years of work to establish a reputation, a new market entrant can catch lightning in a bottle and find itself popular overnight. I have seen (and participated in) that popularity cycle too often over the years and far more often than not it has been an example of castles in the sand.
Sand castles can be beautiful things, requiring a great eye, technical skill and a considerable investment of time. But they are difficult to build in any quantity and disappear overnight. So it is with the new bespoke tailor or shoemaker, who may do excellent work for one or two high visibility customers and is then overwhelmed with orders that far exceed his or her personal ability to produce. Once the ramp up to volume fails, it is often followed by the disappearance of the entire enterprise. Then, life being what it is, two years later a new entrant builds another castle and the cycle repeats itself.
All that said, how can a man take advantage of the latest exceptional value or beautiful design by a suddenly popular but previously unknown supplier? There are two things to remember, in my opinion.
First, and most important, start small and stay small. One garment or pair of shoes at a time will limit the losses should the new enterprise fall apart. This rule is the reason I use multiple tailors, even though I have worked with some of them for many years.
Second, be alert for any signs of business stress. Flee at the first sign of late deliveries or poor quality. Small failures can happen to even the most established enterprises, but remember that things within a new firm are always worse than they appear. If word of mouth about the stresses disappears over time, you can always order again.
Bespeaking anything is unlike buying ready to wear, where the buyer can see what he is going to get. Even the best makers will produce the occasional suit that is a little too tight despite several efforts to fix it, or shoes that are a quarter inch too long for your feet. Added to the already considerable cost of the stuff is the price of the occasional failure, and there is no way around it. But with care you can avoid castles in the sand.
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10 comments:
I'm in two minds about this. No-one wants to take loss and failures, but jettisoning a small maker experiencing troubles is the sure way to help ruin him, and a bit unethical. There's no sense in decrying the disappearing world of small, quality makers while also letting them drown in the name of 'the invisible hand'.
One might bail out and leave others to soak up the losses until recovery (or collapse), but what if everyone has the same idea and no-one stays to ride out the storm? That's how the entire house of cards collapses. Nobody wins.
How is it unethical?
How is it not?
When did it become unethical to avoid unscrupulous or simply careless makers? It is up to the supplier to be worthy.
Exercising choice is not unethical
Now then, I didn't see any mention of unscrupulous or careless makers; only mistakes, perhaps as a result of a small quality maker trying to cater to more than a handful of customers and remain viable in a world of large-scale production.
The 'choice' issue I'll leave. It's become a tiresome buzzword.
I've been thinking about this post for a couple of days now as it concerns me personally. I don't agree with Will's second point about business stress, and find that it promotes the failure of us smaller/soon-to-be artisans. Sure, you can and should flee at first signs of poor quality, but fleeing a startup for late deliveries from my standpoint is unjust.
I think that many startups, including mine, aren't necessarily in a position, for one reason or another, to cater to immediate overwhelming demand.
For example, given my current work situation, I wouldn't be able to comfortably cater to more than eight orders a month, and I KNOW this already, before launch.
So I consider the hypothetical situation that I receive more than ten orders. The obvious solution is to quit my part-time, thus bringing my production capacity up to about sixteen a month.
Now I imagine that I receive more than sixteen orders, and I find myself in a, as Will would define it, "business stress" situation. My only solution at this point would be to work every single day , and late into the night to bring my capacity up to about twenty-five. This puts me in a very uncomfortable place.
To cut a long comment short, if for some reason a small startup goes through the roof, late deliveries will likely happen; at least until someone else is hired and trained.
Even the best need your help to push through the storm, so please avoid dropping us small startups unless you truly aren't satisfied with the product itself.
One key to successful production (in any field) is framing expectations. If a volume of orders is likely to delay deliveries, the maker has to lift his or her nose from the grindstone and tell the clients what is going to happen, and why. No one wants to disappoint a customer, but in this case bad news is better than none at all.
Would you stay on board with a supplier that notified you that they were experiencing Business stress?
@Miekka: It depends on the kind of stress. And the kind of message. "Due to a sharp increase in orders, we are speeding up production and reducing quality" would ring down the curtain pretty quickly. On the other hand, "(thank you dear customers for all the orders, many more than before) (we will maintain all the good things you like about us) (we are hiring/training additional staff, expanding our premises, etc.)(for the moment, order fulfillment will take x weeks longer than usual) (we thank you for your understanding)" would keep me informed, interested, and appreciative.
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